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202 cause lobsters to take to the mode of life of fleas, and to observe what changes the animals underwent in consequence. In order to carry on his experiments, he had to clear a space of the lagoon, close to the coral-reef, where he could keep the lobsters he required, and where he could initiate the fleas into the mysteries of aquatic life. Most of his time was spent on shore, whither he transported his lobsters in order to accustom them to the habits of fleas.

After repeated trials, varied in every manner that human ingenuity could suggest, he found it impossible to accustom the fleas to aquatic life, nor would they touch the food that lobsters delighted in. All the fleas died shortly after their transference to the water. With the lobsters he was more successful. He rolled them up in blankets, and that the change of life might not be too sudden, he damped the blankets. He fed them on human blood, supplied from the veins of himself and a few enthusiastic co-operators. The lobsters all died under this treatment, but a few survived sufficiently long to raise hopes that eventually some might get quite accustomed to the new life. Schnüffelpilz was delighted to find that the few survivors underwent such changes before their death as to convince him, that were the experiment to be sufficiently long continued, and could the lobsters live long enough in the blankets, their physiological constitution and their habits would ultimately assimilate to those of the flea. Their antennae broke off short, they cast their huge claws, no longer required under the novel circumstances of their life, their tails curled up under them, so that their whole appearance was not unlike that of a flea seen through a magnifying glass, and before they died their